Customer Reviews

The Sinner's Guide to Confession

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a delight from start to finish. The author's trademark humor sparkles throughout, and the dialogue crackles with wit. Gracefully written, it is at once funny and profound, and offers a moving testament to the healing power of female friendship. "Sinner's Guide" is a perfect selection for book clubs. Don't miss it.

From the very first page, I was gripped by Phyllis Schieber's wonderful novel, completely entranced by the friendships and choices made by three memorable characters. You'll want to recommend this novel to all your friends, and it's a perfect selection for any book club.

There were the insights and revelations that gave little jabs of recognition throughout. The last forty or so pages I was fighting tears which were clouding my ability to read. So touched by Ellen's story. Nice read for women of "a certain age" as one reviewer commented, but I think women of all ages would benefit from this book.

Three women, Barbara, Kaye and Ellen, bonded in friendship and through shared experiences, each have a big secret. They have reached a point in their lives - a turning point, as it were - and must decide whether or not to risk sharing each of their secrets.

For Ellen, it is something that happened in her teens - a loss from which she has yet to recover. And when her husband betrays her with a younger woman, she suffers even more because of the earlier loss.

Barbara's husband has just died, and as she adjusts to widowhood - and recuperates from the financial mess of her husband's business life - she turns to her own secret life. But she holds it close to her, this special world of hers, because there is a huge risk to sharing. Everything she has built could be destroyed.

And Kaye's secret could completely upend the world she has created with her husband.

With deft movement from past to present, with alternate peeks into each woman's secret life, the author titillates the reader, revealing more as the story moves along to its conclusion.

What will happen in each woman's life to bring the secrets into the open? And what effect will the exposure have on their lives, their friendship, and their future?

Compelling story - albeit a little predictable at times - The Sinner's Guide to Confession is interesting enough to warrant four stars. Recommended for women of a certain age, who can relate to the friendship aspect, as well as understand how life-changing experiences can bring about growth.

Laurel-Rain Snow

Barbara, Ellen, and Kaye are longtime friends, yet they all have secrets they are keeping from one another. Barbara, a widowed mother of three adult children, is hiding the fact that she writes erotica in addition to the romance novels that everyone knows about. Kaye is hiding the fact that she is in the midst of a great relationship with a man who loves her, makes her feel beautiful, and gives her the best sex of her life - a man other than her faithful husband. And Ellen, who recently lost her husband to a much younger woman, has kept the secret of a daughter she was forced to give up for adoption at age sixteen from her friends for years. But when Ellen's father passes away, she is reunited with the family she despises, and comes to the realization that she needs to find her daughter - the true family she never had. Only her best friends can help her, and it is in this search that the women reveal more of themselves to one another than they ever had before.

The Sinner's Guide to Confession is a fantastic book about the power that womens' friendships can have in each others' lives. I am always inclined to read books about groups of women, especially when the topics focus on the friendships between them and how important those friendships are to the women involved. This novel absolutely fell into that category. Barbara, Ellen, and Kaye have been friends for a long time and truly depend on one another for comfort and love, yet their friendships are far from perfect. They can be cruel to one another, they hide things from each other, and they don't always give each other the support necessary. Yet, when it came down to it, when Ellen was faced with a real tragedy, Kaye and Barbara did not blink an eye before committing to stand by her for whatever she needed.

While the women in the novel are a little older than I am (their children are my age), I did relate to them on some level. My friendships with my girlfriends are an important part of my own life, and I also have a group of women that I've been friends with for years. We don't keep monumental secrets from one another, and the women in the book were a little harder on each other than my friends and I are, but when we truly need each other, my girlfriends are always there - just as Barbara and Kaye were for Ellen. I think the characters in this novel may resonate more with women in their 40's than they did with me, but I still appreciated them and felt for what they were each going through - I just think I may be a little young to fully understand these characters.

Overall, I enjoyed The Sinner's Guide to Confession. It is a powerful book about how important friendships can be, and also about how devastating secrets can be to one's life. While the themes in the book may be a bit heavy, the writing itself is not, and it was easy to get through and very readable. I will be watching for more of Scheiber and looking forward to reading more by her.

The Sinner's Guide to Confession follows longtime friends Kaye and Barbara, who are now in their fifties. Kaye and Barbara soon make friends with Ellen, who is several years younger, but their friendship solidifies and becomes close-knit. The three women are inseparable, but each nurtures a secret.

The alternating narrators for the chapters keeps the reader guessing as to when the friends will break down all of the walls between them and share their deepest secrets. From a romance novelist hiding her alternate career as an erotica writer to a married woman having a long-term, passionate affair. Readers will appreciate the perspective Justine, Barbara's daughter, provides to Kaye and Barbara's relationship. The friendship between these women is long standing and much of the story focuses on their relationships with one another as well as their relationships with the men in their lives. The novel may be considered an older woman's chicklit book, but it has more substance.

Of the three women, Ellen's story was the most heart-wrenching and deeply moving. Readers learn early on about Ellen's secret, but as her chapters unfold, the devastation of one decision she makes early on in her life has significant impact on how her life unfolds. Ellen's decision establishes her reactions and interactions with others, her husband, and her friends. It's amazing how a decision not completely in her control molded her into the woman readers see in the beginning pages of this novel. Ellen is afraid of making decisions, hides behind the confidence brought by her false eyelashes, and holds deep grudges against her parents.

The intricate relationships between these characters are intense, and the relationships with each family member provides a realistic glimpse into the dynamics of family. Each member plays a specific role in how the family operates, and these women are central to those families.

This book is a gem. If you are anywhere near 50 it will spark both tears and laughter at how brilliantly it captures the highs and lows of friendships, aging, marriage, parenting, sex and purpose. I usually read a good book quickly. This one is taking me weeks because I'm savoring every page and doing a lot of rereading. You'll be laughing, you'll be crying, you'll be emailing passages to your friends. Don't miss this book!

Take three best friends, each woman has her own life and family. They share just about everything - but each friend has a secret that she won't share with her friends or family. Will people think less of her if they know the secret she is hiding? How will her life change if she admits the truth? Will her life be better if she shares the secret? Admitting the truth gives friends and family the chance to help her with the secret - is that what she wants?

Barbara, Kaye and Ellen live in New York and they are each around 50 years old. Barbara recently lost her husband when he died unexpectedly.
Thankfully, she has a lucrative career as a romance author and an even more lucrative secret. Her children are grown and on their own, but she is their mother and children have certain expectations about what their mother's should do.

Kaye has a life with her husband and her children are adults, but her relationship with her husband has grown stale - is her future with him or another man? She meets a man who makes her feel sexy and desired, that makes her "stale" relationship with her husband even harder to tolerate. What will the future bring for Kaye and her family?

Ellen was forced, by her parents, to give up her daughter for adoption. This made her relationship even more strained with her parents and siblings. This forced adoption is even harder to handle as Ellen is married and she is unable to become pregnant. Will Ellen be able to meet her long lost daughter and if she does, can they forge a relationship?

Each of these women has a strong support system in place, but she needs to make the decision to trust these people with the secrets she is hiding. Their journey to self discovery takes you on an interesting, touching, emotion and at times a humorous trek through the pages of The Sinners' Guide to Confession. Female relationship stories are not usually my favorite reads, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and often found myself laughing at great one liners and other times reaching for tissues as I read this very well written book by Phyllis Schieber.

When I received a request to host this book's blog tour in Jan 09 and was offered a copy of the book I jumped at it. I love to read and the title sounded so intriquing!

Here I was thinking I'd receive advice on this very touchy subject - confession.

I received the book and noted it was a Novel and then read the blurb and still the idea of reading it excited me.

Although I enjoyed the novel and the characters I found that the title and even the blurb are misleading as one would expect such to contain a spiritual message and, except for a few references to forgiveness, there is nothing spiritual about this novel at all.

All in all though, it was a good book with well-defined characters and a well-crafted plot.

Pamela S Thibodeaux, Author of Tempered Fire
"Inspirational with an Edge!" (TM)

Wow! what a concept women who are still best of friends in their mid-50's.

I loved this powerfully written book. The story of these three women is deeply touching and inspiring.

I am a fan of chick lit, but, of course, most of the time, these novels preent us with perky little 20 something's who struggle through love, romance, sex and jobs. Well, I am pleased to say that author Schieber has written her own version of a chick lit novel - presenting us with fully developed characters who are now all grown up and in their 50's but are still struggling with the same issues - which I believe shows us that the problems women face today do cross over the generations - its not only about the age.

Schieber deftly shows us that smart women, who, for the most part, seem to have their lives together can still struggle with issues both externally and internally and that what helps them get through it all are the bonds of friendship. I loved the deeply rooted ties that are formed between these women who manage to laugh through the tears and to still find the time to be there for each other.

This novel is written with humour, wit and a deep understanding of the female bonds.